Bobby Fischer Quotes

I don't listen to weakies.

They asked me what year it was, what month it was, etc. I easily answered these stupid questions.

I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me.

Alekhine developed as a player much more slowly than most. In his twenties, he was an atrocious chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties.

I really love the dark of the night. It helps me to concentrate.

It is time to finish off the U.S. once and for all.

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind.

They're lying bastards. Jews were always lying bastards throughout their history. They're a filthy, dirty, disgusting, vile, criminal people.

The Russians have fixed world chess.

I don't believe in hero worship.

Too many times, people don't try their best. They don't have the keen spirit; the winning spirit. And once you make it you've got to guard your reputation - every day go in like an unknown to prove yourself. That's why I don't clown around. I don't believe in wasting time. My goal is to win the World Chess Championship; to beat the Russians. I take this very seriously.

The United States is evil. It has to be brought down, it has to be eliminated from the world scene. They are the ones who have made the world the hell that it is.

The white people should go back to Europe, and the country should be returned to the American Indians. This is the future I would like to see for the so-called United States.

I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it

I consider myself to be a genius who happens to play chess.

I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want.

Normally we'd draw the curtain here, but I just wanted to see what he'd play next.

They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

I don't remember one thing I learned in school.

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!

I don't like American girls. They're very conceited, you know. In Europe they're more pleasant.

Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.

Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all

There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

I don't want to look like a bum.

Its just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something

Chess is like war on a board

To get squares you have to give up squares.

Computers are our only opponents that don't always have no excuse when losing against me.

Now my only income is a few royalty cheques from my books.

Ultimately the white man should leave the United States and the black people should go back to Africa.

Is it against the law to kill a reporter?

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.

The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them.

Well, I'm not sure I know what you mean by a prima donna, but if something doesn't interest me or if someone bores me, or if I think they're a phony, I just don't bother with them, that's
all.

I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, '84-'85. But the God-damn Jews have stolen my entire file on that.

I add status to any tournament I attend.

I felt that chess ... is a science in the form of a game ... I consider myself a scientist. I wanted to be treated like a scientist.

The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian ... It's actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians.

My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration

I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess Others give only 2 percent

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

There's no one alive I can't beat.

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

For the first lesson, I want you to play over every column of Modern Chess Openings, including the footnotes. And for the next lesson, I want you to do it again.

Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego.

When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties - before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since.

I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I saw a preview for the movie Pearl Harbor. And they showed the Japanese airplanes coming in to bomb Pearl Harbor, and I applauded. Nobody else in the theater applauded.

I hate ready-made suits, button-down collars, and sports shirts.

I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves

I was never invited to the White House. They invited that Olympic Russian gymnast - that little Communist, Olga Korbut.

Our mind is all we've got. Not that it won't lead us astray sometimes, but we still have to analyze things out within ourselves.

Nothing eases suffering like human touch.

Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate body from mind

Americans like a winner. If you lose, you're nothing. I'm going to win, though. It's good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We've met five times. He's won three times
and we've drawn twice. But I'm a stronger player and a long match favors me.

I love chess, and I didnt invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, or really its dead. A lot of people have come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. Im really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavour. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so its not degenerated down to memorisation and prearrangement like it is today.

You can only get good at Chess if you love the game

All I want to do, ever, is play chess.

The system set up by F.I.D.E ... Insures that there will always be a Russian world champion ... The Russians arranged it that way.

You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

I don't believe in psychology.

That's what Chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one

Nobody has single-handedly done more for the U.S. than me.

I know people who have all the will in the world, but still can't play good Chess

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

I play honestly and I play to win. If I lose, I take my medicine.

When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, a baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.

People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.

I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum.

There's no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it.

Chess is a matter of delicate judgement, knowing when to punch and how to duck.

I prepare myself well. I know what I can do before I go in. I'm always confident.

Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam.

First of all, we have to understand what communism is. I mean, to me, real communism, the Soviet communism, is basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism.

I want to be world champion. I have achieved it, now I don't know what to do.

My main interest right now is to expose the Jews. This is a lot bigger than me. They're not just persecuting me. This is not just my struggle, I'm not just doing this for myself ... This is life and death for the world. These God-damn Jews have to be stopped. They're a menace to the whole world.

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

I don't like to dwell on the past. I'm interested in Fischerandom now, I am working on a new clock, I'm trying to make chess a more exciting game today. I am not interested in sitting in my rocking chair thinking what I did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it

It's the fault of the chess players themselves. I don't know what they used to be, but now they're not the most gentlemanly group. When it was a game played by the aristocrats it had more like you know dignity to it. When they used to have the clubs, like no women were allowed and everybody went in dressed in a suit, a tie, like gentlemen, you know. Now, kids come running in their sneakers. Even in the best chess club-and they got women in there. It's a social place and people are making noise, it's a madhouse.

I am boring. I am boring!

The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

I want to live the rest of my house in a house built exactly like a rook.

Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his ooponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending.

Yeah, I used to dress badly until I was about sixteen. But people just didn't seem to have enough respect for me, you know And I didn't like that, so I decided I'd have to show them they weren't any better than me, you know? They were sort of priding themselves. They would say, 'He beat us at chess, but he's still just an uncouth kid.' So I decided to dress up.

I read a book lately by Nietzsche and he says religion is just to dull the senses of the people. I agree.

The old chess is too limited. Imagine playing cards, black jack for example, and every time the dealer has the same starting hand you have the same starting hand. What's the point?

The Russians have held my title for ten years and they're going to be in for it when I win the Championship. They're going to have to wait and play under my conditions.

I like the moment when I break a man's ego

When I win, I'll put my title on the line every year, maybe even twice. I'll give players a chance to beat me.

If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me

I can remember times coming home from a chess club at four in the morning when I was half asleep and half dead and forcing myself to pray an hour and study (the Bible) an hour. You know, I
was half out of my head-stoned almost.

FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Champion title.

Vacations are designed to refresh the outlook of everyone. No matter how tired they may be when they return to work, vacationers have been refreshed emotionally and intellectually. Their effectiveness in their job has probably improved, and they are, generally speaking, better employees for the time off.

If you have seen one Alekhine game you've seen them all.

Patzer sees a check, gives a check.

You are never too old to play chess!

I am not today, nor have I ever been a Jew, and as a matter of fact, I am uncircumcised.